Human rights lawyer made to ‘pledge’ that NSW Greens were inclusive to save membership

A human rights lawyer accused of transphobia was required to ‘pledge’ she recognised that the NSW Greens were inclusive to save her membership, raising new concerns about the crushing of dissent inside the party.

Jamie Walker and Marcus de Blonk Smith

Human rights lawyer Anna Kerr has been accused by the NSW Greens of transphobic conduct. Picture: Jason McCormack

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8 hours ago

A human rights lawyer accused of transphobia was required to “pledge” she recognised that the NSW Greens were inclusive to save her membership, raising new concerns about the crushing of dissent inside the party.

Anna Kerr refused – and became one dozens of women said to have been expelled for crossing a “transgender and queer cult” that now calls the shots in the party organisation.

Her experience spurred Australian Greens co-founder Drew Hutton’s decision to speak out, leading to his expulsion in June, and outrage among the membership that has tested the mettle of new federal leader Larissa Waters.

More cases of alleged victimisation are emerging by the day, including that of retired teacher Marian Smedley, 70, who quit in 2023 after a “pile on” by trans activists. “You’re not even allowed to ask a question … it’s so Stalinist,” she told The Australian on Tuesday.

Ms Kerr, the principal solicitor of Sydney’s Feminist Legal Clinic, was put through the wringer after a series of run-ins with the Greens’ hierarchy over gender issues. This included her criticism in The Daily Telegraph in 2021 of a bid by state Greens MP Abigail Boyd to replace the term “woman” with “pregnant person” in legislation before the NSW parliament.

Ms Boyd said at the time: “There are people other than women who have the potential to have a foetus.”

A joint complaint made by 11 NSW Greens members including Ms Boyd and state Greens MP Jenny Leong accused Ms Kerr of contravening party principles and policies, as well as disrupting “Greens actions and discussion groups” with transphobic and trans-exclusionary views.

“These actions have inflicted direct harm towards other members and created unsafe spaces within our party,” they alleged.

The Greens would not tolerate “anti-refugee actions or commentary, we would not allow climate deniers the space within the party … with their unproductive views, and nor should we allow anti-trans and hurtful views about the trans, non-binary and gender-diverse community to go unchecked.”

In calling for Ms Kerr’s immediate suspension, the complainants said: “We request that the member be required to make a pledge that they recognise the Greens NSW is a trans inclusive organisation and commit to not publicly undermining the actions and statements of our elected representatives in connection with trans issues, and commit to not sharing or engaging with trans-related debates in the party in a negative way, nor sharing content within the party that could be deemed transphobic.”

Former Greens member Marian Smedley in Perth on Tuesday. Picture: Colin Murty

If she did not comply, her membership should be terminated, they said.

In reply, Ms Kerr said she was unable to defend Greens’ policies on gender identity when they clashed with both her personal ethics and professional obligations as a human rights lawyer. “There is nothing fair, compassionate or kind about policies which endorse medical experimentation on children and other vulnerable people, dismantle women’s sex-based rights and vilify, stigmatise and seek to silence those who speak about the harm being done,” she submitted.

Gender identity had been elevated into a “pillar of the party”, displacing grassroots democracy.

“I will certainly not be making any pledge to a party constituted in this manner,” she wrote.

In March 2022, the NSW Greens’ conflict resolution committee found her online communications had caused distress and hurt to other members, while her public “protests” breached accepted standards of behaviour. Her membership was to be cancelled with immediate effect.

Greens leader Larissa Waters rejected a claim by Drew Hutton on Tuesday that she had snubbed him when he sought her help to salvage his life membership. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Reflecting on the saga, Ms Kerr said it capped the disconcerting experience of having a transgender man appointed co-convener of the Women’s Working Group of the NSW Greens while she was on the committee, throwing it “into disarray”.

In one email, the person wrote: “Just a reminder to everyone that there are plenty of people who don’t identify as a woman who need abortions and framing it as a women’s issue and essentialising bodies is a large criticism of the second wave of feminism.”

Ms Kerr told The Australian that most of the female committee members quit the working group. “Women generally don’t like confrontation so they just left quietly, which is what is still happening due to the way the party is being run,” she said. “It was an intimidating environment to be in if you disagreed with any of the policies on gender and trans rights … the pushback was nothing short of bullying.”

Mr Hutton said the “transgender and queer cult” – as he termed it – seized key decision-making positions in the party to “influence preselections and expel those who disagree with them”.

The 78-year-old is seeking legal advice on the validity of his exclusion.

Greens’ parliamentarians at both the federal and state level “tread very lightly” for fear of antagonising the powerful faction, he said.

In Canberra, where the new parliament convened on Tuesday for the first time since the federal election, Ms Waters rejected a claim by Mr Hutton that she had snubbed him when he sought her help to salvage his life membership.

Speaking outside the chamber, she denied having refused to take Mr Hutton’s phone calls.

Turning up the heat on him, she said: “I will say … that it’s a real shame someone who has spent their life doing marvellous work on environmental advocacy, who has been held in such high regard by so many, has had their focus pulled from that issue to other issues.

“I think it’s very disheartening to watch that transition.”

Greens co-founder Drew Hutton with wife Libby Connors at their Brisbane home. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Mr Hutton stood by his claim. “I phoned her but I never got a response,” he said. “No message on my answering machine, no call back. I have not spoken to Larissa for 10 years.”

Asked whether her party accepted alternative views to its gender policies backing the rights of young people to transition, Senator Waters said: “We have processes to deal with differences of opinion … people can do that respectfully.”

That was not Ms Smedley’s experience, however. The retired teacher, who joined the Victorian Greens in 2010, said she was “jumped on” when she posted on a substack platform questioning trans ideology and its effect on children.

“One of the reasons I joined the Greens was because they are very democratic … and respectful,” she said from her new home in Perth.

“(But) the Greens have completely corrupted their internal processes to make sure that nobody who doesn’t agree that transwomen are women, or anyone that supports biological reality, cannot hold any position.”

Marit Hegge, 73, a founding member of the Queensland Greens alongside Mr Hutton, said the party’s processes “burnt out” many members, including her. “They have a culture of secrecy … I just had a gutful of it,” she said.

After setting up the state division, Mr Hutton founded the Australian Greens in 1992 with his friend, Bob Brown, the party’s inaugural federal leader who appealed unsuccessfully last Sunday to the Queensland State Council to reinstate him.

Mr Hutton went on to create the national Lock the Gate movement resisting the encroachment of mining and natural gas extraction on farmlands.